Stick around after A Very Merry Fringemas because we’re throwing a party! You’ll want to be there because a very special guest is attending: new Fringe Executive Director Laura Efron! So come celebrate the holidays with us and meet our new Executive Director. Friday, December 8 at 8pm. See you there!

The Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals (CAFF) have drawn their winners for the 2018 CAFF Touring Lottery! All selected companies are guaranteed a spot in all the festivals they wish to perform in. So who’s coming to the 2018 Vancouver Fringe Festival? Let’s see!

Fringe firsts Indigenized Indigenous Theatre’s Treaty Tales: The Animals We Walk Beside by Josh Languedoc, MIND MAGIC Productions’ ANOMALY by Louis Pezzani, and a yet to be titled Wish Experience production will have a go on a Vancouver Fringe stage in 2018.

And say welcome back to our returning Vancouver Fringers! Fringe circuit veteran Cory Thibert who brought HappinessTM to the Vancouver Fringe in 2016 returns after receiving the Future of the Fringe Award from the Ottawa Fringe in 2013 for The Tragicall Historie of Nick Wade (and other fuck ups). Shawn O’Hara is back with Advanced Field Zoology, a follow up to 2017 Vancouver Fringe hit Field Zoology, 101! Devon More Music is another familiar Fringe face you’ll remember from 2016’s Berlin Waltz and Sydney Hayduk with Peachy Keen Productions! Sydney was last here in 2015 with Village Ax!

Colette Kendall returns after ten years—when she “rescue[d] us from our dreary Canadian lack of glamour” (the Georgia Straight) with Who’s Afraid of Tippi Seagram. Rob Gee brings Kevin, King of Egypt, a story about an escaped psychiatric patient who is interrupted on his way to Egypt by Millie, a six-year-old with a mouth like a sandblaster to the Fringe. He brought Fruitcake to the 2011 Vancouver Fringe!

And last, but not least, is Eric Davis and Aitor Basauri of Red Bastard who return with Red Bastard: Lie With Me. Remember when he filmed a commercial for us in 2010?

And that’s the lineup! Who are you most excited to see at the 2018 Fringe?

Announcing the 2018 Fringe New Play Prize Winners!

Sara Vickruck and Anais West were awarded the Fringe New Play Prize for their play Poly Queer Love Ballad.

Playwrights Theatre Centre (PTC) and the Vancouver Fringe Festival are excited to announce that Anais West and Sara Vickruck have been awarded the 2018 Fringe New Play Prize for their new slam poetry musical Poly Queer Love Ballad! They will be working with PTC’s Project Dramaturg Joanna Garfinkel, whose experience in devising script work and her background in a band makes her the perfect collaborator.

In Poly Queer Love Ballad, Anais and Sara merge pop folk songs and spoken word to create a raw, intimate, genre-bending theatre experience. It follows Nina, a polyamorous bisexual poet, and Gabbie, a monogamous lesbian songwriter, with a microphone, a loop pedal, and an array of instruments. Together they reconcile their fierce mutual attraction with their opposing perspectives on sex.

As well as co-creating the play, Anais and Sara will perform the title roles in Poly Queer Love Ballad. You might remember Sara Vickruck, a queer theatre artist and musician, from NeOn at the rEvolver Festival and Circle Game at the Firehall Arts Centre. With an Ovation Award and an E.V. Young Award under her belt, Sara is sure to impress. Her debut album Prologue is on iTunes! She’ll be joined by Anais West, queer actor and playwright and the current Associate Artistic Producer at Pi Theatre. After writing and producing Kill Your Lovers for Buddies in Bad Times Theatre’s Rhubarb Festival and New York City’s Fresh Fruit Festival, Anais went on to co-produce the Virago Play Series, an initiative that develops and produces new work by female and femme playwrights. As a team, Anais and Sara will explore conceptions of queerness, while aiming to create a new representation of intimacy that isn’t confined by genre, medium, or societal obligations.

So keep your eyes peeled because Poly Queer Love Ballad will be at a Mainstage venue at the 2018 Vancouver Fringe Festival, September 6-16, 2018!

Want to be in the 2018 Fringe? Stay Tuned!

Hold tight! Applications for the 2018 Vancouver Fringe Festival will be open soon. In fact, they’ll be included in our next newsletter! So make sure you’re subscribed to be the first to know when applications open. Information will also be available on our website as soon as a date is set.